


Don't Trust Everything You See (Even Salt Looks Like Fish Food)

by CosmoKid



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Gen, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmoKid/pseuds/CosmoKid
Summary: For prompt: My parents are forcing me to attend a support group and the head psychologist is a gullible idiot, so you and I have a competition to see who can tell the most outlandish sob-story without getting caught.





	Don't Trust Everything You See (Even Salt Looks Like Fish Food)

**Author's Note:**

> i have nothing to say

“My Mother thought I was a goldfish,” Raven starts and Murphy fakes a cough to hide his startled laugh. Where is she going with this? “When I was seven-years-old, she took me to the carnival. It was the most fun I’d ever had before we went on the rollercoaster. She was so scared, I’d never seen anything like it. It was like, it was like someone had, someone had touched her soul and ripped it. I remember it so clearly, she stumbled off it and my brother, he had to catch her before she fell, I uh I remember she uh…”

Raven trails off, making a sound that is suspiciously closer to a laugh than a sob. The support group leader coos sympathetically, “It’s okay Raven, take your time.”

She nods and he rolls his eyes and mouths, “You don’t even have a brother.”

“My Mother, she didn’t respond to anything, not as he carried her to the car, not as we drove, not even when the car broke down when Crow, my brother, saw a goat run out into the road and had to brake immediately... I had to walk her home while my brother waited for a tow truck,” she says, her voice shaking. She’s really trying today. “We didn’t even have shoes. We’d all, we’d all fell out the car pretty much, you know, we were disoriented by it and all three of us collapsed to the ground. The goat had eaten through mine and my Mom’s and one of Crow’s shoes before any of us could shoo it away. I loved those shoes so much, they lit up on the heel when I stomped. They were all I had left of my Grandfather, you know, he had these tiny feet and I loved those clogs so much. I even, I still have a scar from where the goat bit into my fourth toe.”

Murphy shoves his hand in his mouth to muffle his laughter. How on earth is he meant to beat this? Anything he could come up with would have to be too outlandish for the support group leader to believe, surely.

“She finally snapped out of it when we got home, at least she thought she had, at first. I just, it, uh.” She stops to take a deep breath. He raises his eyebrows at her, suppressing his smile the best he can. “The first thing she said to me was, _oh don’t you look pretty honey_ , and I, I nearly cried. She never called me pretty! My entire childhood, she criticized me for how I looked. I looked too close to my Father than her, she'd lament over bottle after bottle of Gatorade and gin how she wished I’d gotten her fair skin, tow-headed hair and lapis lazuli orbs-”

He has to fake an entire coughing fit to hide his laughter at that, interrupting her. He clenches his eyes shut, faking cough after cough as he tries to stop laughing. 

“Murphy, do you need to go outside? Perhaps get some water?” the support group leader asks and she is entirely serious. He schools his face into a neutral expression to hide his disbelief that she’s actually buying this.

“I’m fine,” he murmurs, crossing his ankles. Raven shoots him a smirk. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, Raven. I know it must be hard for you to share this.”

“It’s okay,” she says, nodding. “Where was I again? Oh right, _lapis lazuli orbs_. So uh yeah, I was so happy and then she, she said, she called me _Goldy_ and I tried to tell her _Mom, no, I’m Raven_ , but she just didn’t hear me. She just kept talking at me, calling me Goldy and telling me how pretty my scales were. She picked me up and placed me on the counter, asked how I’d gotten out of my bowl. I was so shocked and confused, I couldn’t even move, not even when she dumped salt on my head thinking it was fish food and not even when she, when she tried to change the water in my tank.”

She stops then and begins to let out ugly sobs that are clearly laughs, but the support group leader looks concerned. 

“Raven, honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I am,” she says and nods, wiping her eyes as if there were any actual tears. “I don’t think I can continue though, it’s just, it’s too much.”

“That’s understandable, you should never force yourself to do something that you’re not able to do. Doing damage to yourself isn’t worth it,” the support group leader says and Murphy decides he should really know her name at this point. “Would anyone else like to share?”

There are a few moments of silence, everyone probably still reeling from Raven’s story, before the girl in question speaks up, “Uh, Murphy said he had something to share earlier, but said he didn’t want to take my time to talk.”

It’s a challenge, he knows it is. She’s fully aware that there’s no way he can beat her story even if she didn’t finish and that she’s definitely won the bet for tonight. Still, he’s not going to back down. 

“Is that true, Murphy?” the leader asks in a soft voice, turning to look at him. 

The lie is slowly forming in his head as he slowly nods. “Uh, when I was nine years old, a uh a local drug-dealer accidentally, accidentally suffocated me by pushing my head into a molehill in hopes that I’d be able to find his, his uh Mile High Club cufflink. I was, I was uh… legally dead for two minutes, but an out-of-town horse-impersonator managed to uh resuscitate me, I owe them my life, and apparently the Bee Gees too. And um, ever since, I’ve been, I’ve been _terrified_ of hedgehogs.”

He’s completely ready when the leader says, “Okay, talk us through it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :D
> 
>  
> 
> come be scared of hedgehogs with me on [tumblr](https://cosmo-k-i-d.tumblr.com/%22)  
> 


End file.
